ridiculous rating

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

What's funny when we watch old movies is that we understand that today innovative movies have really invented nothing because all the idea had been shot decade ago: their only interest is the level of production and technology... So here we have a comedy featuring an elusive thief ridiculing a french clumsy inspector: So it's the same background featured in Fantomas movie shot with Fufu in the sixties. If the movies are almost contemporary (around 1963 - 1964), the two take their root in the french serial of Belle Epoque. Anyway, this Panther is really a great comedy: maybe the rhythm is a bit poor for today tastes but at last we laugh and it's a really family movie with decent characters. The jewel of this movie is really the cast because you change Niven, Sellers and Cardinale and I'm sure the result would be very different! At last, the movie gets better all along because the funny moments a bit failed or boring at the start or the middle are totally crazy at the end of the movie! The last half hour is indeed really amazing comedy!

Although I like "A Shot in the Dark" better, I find this movie irresistible. From other reviews, I have come to realize that people judge this film on some of the later films which had none of the charm of the original. The case is relatively unimportant. What makes it work is the incredible comedic genius of Peter Sellers. When he died, we lost one of the true comics of our time. He had that wry Britishness to him and an incredible overconfidence that was endearing. The most precious thing to me was his English pronunciation of simple words. "Minkey" for "monkey," for instance. He also would ignore the most awful things going on around him and focus on some triviality. This movie will make your day.

I could watch Peter Sellers fumble and bumble around all day, but this picture didn't live up to the expectation I had of it for so long. When the movie came out I recall it made quite a splash, giving birth to a cartoon series and movie sequels, and that Pink Panther theme is as recognizable as any movie theme that's out there. But as for the film, what a disappointment. All the 'under the bed' and 'hide in the closet' stuff got to be way too tedious for this viewer, and quite honestly, watching David Niven pucker up with Claudia Cardinale was a little more than I could take. The topper of course was Inspector Clouseau getting hauled off to the hoosegow mistakenly taken for The Phantom; I thought I stumbled into the wrong picture. By then it would have been too late to turn around of course. I'll have to take the advice of other reviewers here and catch up with one of the sequels.

While this Blake Edwards comedy introduced the immortal Peter Sellers character of Inspector Clouseau to the world, it is worth noting that he is only a supporting character in the proceedings here as the focus of 'The Pink Panther' is would-be jewel thieves David Niven and Robert Wagner. The first half of the film is in fact hard to endure at times with so much focus given to Niven and Wagner, whose characters are not very remarkable or funny. This balance shifts around halfway in though and there are several funny moments in the second half of the film - the best of which is a sequence in which Capucine has to balance hiding not one but two men in her room without the second man catching onto the first, or Sellers catching onto either! There is also a hilarious homage to the Marx Brothers near the end with twin gorilla suited men doing their take on 'Duck Soup''s broken mirror scene. Clouseau's ultimate fate here is memorable too as he actually gets too clever for his own good. No matter how much of a high note the film ends on though, it is still hard to discount the clumsiness of the first half. That said, repeat viewings are kind to the film. While the frequent absence of Sellers is perplexing the first time round, the film is easier to endure upon revision knowing that this will be the case and that his character will surface in further depth towards the end. Henry Mancini's bouncy, mysterious music score is a delight either way and without 'The Pink Panther', there would be no 'A Shot in the Dark', regarded by some Blake Edwards' funniest comedy.